Capps ended the weekend No. 8 in the point standings, with one event
remaining before the top 10 compete for the Funny Car championship in the
final six national events of the season. Mathematically, Capps could
still achieve his goal of moving into the top five. With 118 points
available in a weekend, Capps is 82 markers out of that top five.

In the opening round today, Capps struck the tires early in the NAPA AUTO
PARTS Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car, while Force cruised to the victory by
1.7801 seconds with a 4.241-second elapsed time at 296.57 mph to Capps'
losing 6.007/110.95.

"We're not sure yet what happened," said Capps, who was the No. 12
qualifier. "Basically, we just overpowered the track a little bit.
Obviously we didn't have lane choice but we were comfortable with the
4.16 we ran yesterday in the last session of qualifying (third-quickest
of that session) and we actually ran it in the same (right) lane. The
lane of choice became the left lane today. I thought it was free and
clear where it got in trouble and the track just wouldn't hold it. We
were trying to run a high teen.

“Now that we've clinched a place in the Countdown, we can continue
to implement some of these things we've been trying to test for later in
the season. It's part of getting better and trying to find that edge. You
can't find that edge if you don't step over it once in a while, and
that's what we have to do.

“I feel very good going into the U.S. Nationals in two weeks. We're
in the Showdown $100,000 bonus event that weekend, and we have a very
tough match-up first round with (points leader) Tim Wilkerson there. I
feel like we have a great car going into Indy." Capps is a three-time
Showdown champion.

Next up is the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis on Labor Day weekend, Aug.
29-Sept. 1.